Ezekiel Gillespie was an African-American civil rights leader who won a landmark case securing voting rights for African-American men in Wisconsin. Gillespie was born a slave in Mississippi (or Tennessee), probably the son of an African-American slave and her white slave owner. As a young man he purchased his own freedom for $800. He traveled to Indiana, and soon moved to Milwaukee, Wisconsin, where he found success selling groceries at the corner of Mason and Main, and then worked as a railroad porter. He quickly became a leader in the African-American community, an activist fighting for equal rights. He operated a local branch of the Underground Railroad and facilitated the founding of Wisconsin’s first African-American church. In 1865, Gillespie attempted to vote. He was denied a ballot, so he sued the Board of Elections. Gillespie v. Palmer went all the way to the Wisconsin Supreme Court. The justices of the court sided with Gillespie, in his argument that Wisconsin voters had voted in favor of male African American suffrage in an 1849 referendum. He was the first African-American voter in Wisconsin.